Market Reports: Sales Volume Up in Brooklyn

Time to have fun with numbers! Lots of ’em, as the first-quarter market reports for Brooklyn are upon us. So what do they tell us about 2011 thus far? Depends on which one you look at, though the general consensus is that Brooklyn’s market is markedly stronger than it was at this time last year in terms of sales volume, and condos are doing brisker business. Here’s what they’re saying:

Elliman: As shown in the chart above, Elliman’s report (posted here at some point today), which is prepared by Miller Samuel, isn’t recording big shifts in median sales prices compared to Q1 2010 or last quarter. However, there was a decent uptick in sales volume, from 1,861 property sales last year to 2,373 in the same quarter this year. The big story in Elliman’s report is that condo sales were way up year-over-year, from 573 to 923. While all property types showed increases in sales volume, though, median prices were only down on one- to three-families: From $540,000 in Q1 2010 to $520,000 this quarter.

Corcoran: The Big C’s report [PDF] is aided and abetted by the folks at PropertyShark. Here’s part of the synopsis: “Market wide sales were up 25% from both last quarter and a year ago, driven by a boost of transactions in new development properties across the borough. New development market share in First Quarter 2011 was 44%, up from 41% last quarter and 35% from First Quarter 2010. Market wide, the median price of a Brooklyn apartment was $430,000, an increase of 6% from last quarter and relatively unchanged from one year ago…Single-family townhouse sales were 4% higher in median price than last quarter but were 3% lower than a year ago.”

REBNY: Crain’s has the rundown on the Real Estate Board of New York’s first quarter tallies, in which Kings fares comparatively well: “Brooklyn was the only borough in the city where the number of home sales did not dip. There were nearly 2,281 total home sales in the first quarter, up 1% from the same time last year.”